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How to use denoising?

Modified on: Tue, 20 Jun, 2017 at 5:28 PM

How to use denoising?

Denoising has been introduced in Corona Renderer 1.4. It is a post-rendering effect which analyzes noise in the 3D space and smartly reduces it without producing splotches while maintaining sharp edges and texture details. Therefore it is not a strictly 2D post-process. The result can be interactively blended with the original non-denoised image directly in the VFB after the rendering is finished to achieve desired level of denoising. This is especially useful if the denoised image appears to be overprocessed (generally this should not happen but can sometimes be observed, for example in case of textures with very subtle patterns and rendering a small number of passes).

The main purpose of denoising, along with adaptivity, is reducing the number of passes needed to get a noise-free image. The reported render time reductions are between 50 and 70%. Denoising also attempts to remove fireflies (single bright pixels) from the image.

Denoising is applied after the rendering is finished. This can be done either bylimiting the rendering, or by manually stopping it after desired time.

Note: Clicking "Cancel" in the 3ds Max rendering dialogue will DISCARD denoising, and it will not be applied to the final rendering! To stop rendering and apply denoising, you need to use the "Stop" button in Corona VFB, or in 3ds Max 2017 rendering window.

Denoise amount - this can be seen as opacity of the denoised image being overlaid on top of the original one

Denoise radius - radius of the blurring filter. Increasing it may help reduce very strong noise. Decreasing can help prevent loss of fine details. Default value usually works best.

Saving a CXR file and denoising it later

The "Gather data for later" option can be used to skip the actual denoising process, but save the denoising data within the CXR file. Such file can be then denoised later using the Corona Image Editor.

Saving multiple versions of the rendering with different denoising amounts

Multiple "CShading_Beauty" render elements can be used to save different versions of the same image at once with various amounts of denoising applied. Individual denoising amount is specified in the properties of each CShading_Beauty element regardless of the in-VFB setting:

Multiple CShading_Beauty elements visible on the render elements list. The denoising value of each of the elements is different than the currently set "denoise amount" in Corona VFB. Click to enlarge.

Denoising other render elements

Denoising can be applied to other render elements too by enabling the "Apply denoising also to this render element" option in each element's settings.

Examples

Below are some examples where denoising greatly improves image quality:

1. Denoising on and off

1.1. Denoising on - interior scene - 10 minutes.

(click to enlarge)

1.2. Denoising off - interior scene - 10 minutes.

(click to enlarge)

1.3. Denoising on - strong DOF - 10 minutes.

(click to enlarge)

1.4. Denoising off - strong DOF - 10 minutes.

(click to enlarge)

2. Denoise radius

2.1. Denoise radius: 1Denoise amount: 1

(default settings)

2.2. Denoise radius: 0,25Denoise amount: 1Note that the details are sharper than with default settings, but there are some artifacts visible.